World Cup 2018: Russian media mock ‘husband-hunters’

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(BBC) – The Russian arm of the fast-food chain Burger King has apologised after offering women a reward of 3m roubles (£36,000; $47,000) and free Whopper burgers for life if they got pregnant with a World Cup player’s baby.

“Women who manage to get the best football genes will promote the Russian team’s success for generations to come,” the advert said.

The promotion caused public outrage in the competition’s host nation, forcing the company to delete it. “This is a direct reflection of the level our society is at towards women,” said one feminist community on the messaging app Telegram.

In advertising and in the media, Russian women are being portrayed as sexual predators hunting their prey.

Articles in the pro-Kremlin media describe the way they “bait foreign fans” and chat them up.

In one YouTube video, a state TV host says that “hundreds or thousands of vamps have flocked to Moscow” in the hope of meeting foreign football fans.

Sports website Championat has also been publishing a daily roundup of “top World Cup beauties”, and some prominent bloggers have followed suit.

Sexism in Russia

This kind of rhetoric is hardly new in post-communist Russia where feminist voices are little heard. Gender-role debates get short shrift on Russian TV, and if programmes come across anything remotely feminist, it is often dismissed as Western propaganda trying to undermine Russian traditional values.

And yet there doesn’t seem to be much push-back from Russian women.

Women’s rights activist Alyona Popova told the BBC that there was a lack of assertiveness among Russian women.

“If men are shouting from every corner that a woman is just a body, and find excuses to justify sexual harassment, and blame victims of domestic abuse for what happened, then women start thinking that this is the norm,” she said.

Ms Popova referred to a recent sexual harassment scandal involving high-profile Russian MP Leonid Slutsky, who was accused by several journalists of sexual misconduct. Despite the public outrage, the MP managed to retain his post after parliament’s ethics commission cleared him of all allegations.

Sexist chants unchallenged

When a video surfaced showing Brazilian football fans singing a vulgar chant in Portuguese with a Russian woman, there was uproar in Brazil, but little reaction in Russia itself.

The woman, who apparently speaks no Portuguese, is seen smiling and trying to sing along with Brazilian fans, not realising that the chant is about part of her anatomy. “I guess she thinks they’re promising to take her overseas. Fail,” joked one popular Telegram account.

An online petition in Russia calling on authorities to prosecute those involved has attracted some 2,500 signatures. Some of those involved in the chant have already been identified in the Brazilian press.

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One comment

thats the same thing i will always say here we have a set of people that are offended when men treat them this sort of way but yet most of them dress a certain type of way if not half naked and want to get on. if most of yall women had respect for yall self then none of this should be happening . yes i agree that does not give the man a right to disrespect you but if you dont have none for yourself how do you expect people to react. it takes respect to demand respect. here it is said in the media, Russian women are being portrayed as sexual predators hunting their prey. dont yall see how women especially young girls portray them selves especially at carnival so how would you not be expected to be portrayed as a sexual preditor if you dont show and have respect to your self.